The police clamped down on protestors who had gathered at Heathrow airport in London to protest against Gafor's deportation. According to the Bristol Defend Asylum Seekers Campaign, arrests focused on journalists and film crews breaching freedom of information laws and the new European Human Rights Act. Mike Taylor was one of those arrested. Four charges were brought against him, two of which - assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest - were later dropped. Nonetheless, two charges remain - organising a demonstration to interfere with passenger safety and refusing to leave airport property. Worryingly, the judge is keen to "set a precedent to ensure the safety of UK airports".

According to Mike Taylor: "The police cracked-down and blockaded the media arresting myself, a film-maker from Asian Zee-TV and barricading a BBC film crew (they said with 16 vehicles). The operation was planned from top down A list of trumped-up charges was laid down on me. They painted me as some sort of terrorist thug. They arrived with body-armour and shotguns to arrest us; we arrived with our children and tin whistles. It was ridiculous. It just goes to show how far New Labour will go to squash the voices of those who dare to welcome asylum seekers."

On August 13, Amanj Gafor was finally deported by boat from the UK to Germany after a four and a half year struggle to seek asylum in 6 EU countries. His deportation ended a 7-month battle in the UK that saw activists stop three removal attempts on British Airways and Lufthansa flights. In one such attempt, his struggle to prevent his deportation while bound and handcuffed won the compassion of the pilot and flight crew of British Airways flight BA4715 who refused to take off. After several corporate fines, electronic actions and fax campaigns, the airlines withdrew from his deportation, forcing the British government to resort to deportation by sea. While a sea blockade was planned, in the end Amanj made a decision to go.

Amanj has been ground down by the wholesale rejection in Fortress Europe, by the hard-faced and uncompassionate governments, by the bogus solicitors that sapped his earnings without fighting, by the beatings and brutality of deportation officers and by years of imprisonment without trial in Europe’s detention centres. He is now sectioned in a mental hospital in Nuremburg, Germany and under sedation awaiting removal in the near future back to Iraqi Kurdistan, the place he first fled for his life in 1996.

The charges against Taylor must be dropped and Gafor must be granted asylum.

In another case in Ireland, a group of eleven anti-racists who occupied a constituency office in protest to proposed draconian measures against asylum seekers were arrested on March 28. Two of the women were strip-searched. They were protesting the government's plan to introduce prison ships (so-called 'flotels'), forcible fingerprinting and the introduction of police from abroad to catch people fleeing. The eleven have been charged under the Public Order Act and face prison sentences.

All their charges must also be dropped.

Letters of protest and support for Mike Taylor can be sent to the Bristol Defend Asylum Seekers Campaign,  bdasc@hotmail.com; letters on behalf of the eleven anti-racists can be sent to Residents Against Racism,  dublin_11@hotmail.com. Supporters can also join a protest for Mike Taylor at his hearing on December 22 at Uxbridge Magistrates Court, Harefield Road.